H's Moonlight Vignettes
by Anatomy Melancholia
Summary: An unrelated series of 17 vignettes set in the Moonlight world. Mick/Beth, Mick/Coraline, Josef and the occasional hapless OC feature. Rated M for sexual themes and language in some.
1. Vampire Appeal

Disclaimer: WB owns 'Moonlight.' I make no money off this.

AN: The vignette's are NOT intended to be part of canon, nor are they meant to be part of a larger story. They are just short pieces that came to mind.

I had a lot of fun writing these. I hope they provide some enjoyment in return. If you like 'em, I'd love to hear it. If you hate 'em...well, now that's really important for me to hear! :)

--

**Vignette #1. Vamp Appeal**

Mick/Josef/OC

How much would one give up to be undead? Mick knew that if Josh had been asked as he lay dying, instead of a gut-wrenching cry of agony, he would have clasped tight Beth's hand and whispered, 'Yes, turn me, yes, turn me' until Mick acquiesced. Humans did that; _he_ would have done that given the choice. They just didn't know better. You couldn't know what you were giving up; death is a clean break, better to go far away than linger in a half-life.

Josef had scoffed at him once, across the pale stomach of the girl between them. They were at opposite ends, Mick at her head, Josef at her feet.

"And apart from drinking blood and avoiding direct sunlight, what about this life situation strikes you as inadequate?" Josef gestured to the two fang marks around dusky areolae. "Does she look inadequate? Guarantee you wouldn't have stood a chance when you were mortal, especially with those Hawaiian shirts."

Mick ignored the sounds of chuckling. He traced a long scratch down the girl's side. She'd come on to _him_ tonight. Josef was just getting lucky by proxy. "What's your name?" he asked, mouth quirking as she blushed.

Josef chuckled again, but alone.

"Diana."

This time Mick laughed. _Of all the theatric..._ "Well, goddess of the moon and the hunt, would you have fucked me if I was human?"

She rose on her elbows and flipped over to face him thoughtfully. Mick briefly peered at Josef over the thatched mess of her hair. The other vampire looked downright peeved for a second, then brightened as he watched the muscles of her ass flex.

"I think," she started.

Mick caught himself wondering if she'd taste of raspy whiskey when he tore her throat out.

"I think that I would have fucked you if you came up to me on the street and asked for the time of the day."

He bent to kiss her. "And that, Diana, is probably the only reason I'd approach you on the street. Plenty of other people can give directions."

She pushed up against his lips awkwardly. He realised a second later that Josef was back between her legs, thrusting.

Rising to his knees, Mick nodded to her to use her mouth. The sensation was exquisite; he hummed.

Was it his imagination or was it lightening already in the corners of the room? The fourteen-string orchestra he was conducting in time with her movements dulled abruptly as the orgasmic percussion of her heart took over. Josef bent over her shoulder. Mick bent over Josef. Like a slow accordion they enfolded each other spasmodically, writhing and drinking.


	2. The Taming by the Shrew

**Vignette#2 - The Turning by the Shrew**

Mick/Coraline

His first night with Coraline was spent dying. She hid him from the sunlight all of the next day. He woke up near evening in the marital bed to which he'd carried her, and the way the room swam told him that something was very wrong. He didn't remember much: he remembered a woman, her face close to his, and then the coiled burning in his stomach as the lust suddenly changed. It was frightening; his body was reacting to memories on a neural level, but his mind was churning so badly he thought he was going to throw up or pass out again. He tried to remember where he was...who he was.

"Sssshh."

He hissed with pain at the overloud whisper. The room was stifling; he was burning up. A sluggish impulse had him half-yawn before the sharp pain in his upper lip registered. He put a clumsy hand to the cut and stared at the drops running down his finger. His...what was that called again?...was...what is this?

Coraline had to pull the finger away before he bit clean through the bone, his mouth sucking desperately at the blood, fangs embedded in the flesh.

He ran away from her that second night. She never got the chance to explain and she never tried again. She found him eventually, cowering behind a car, begging her to kill him. When he took little joy in the feeding, she knew she had miscalculated.


	3. The Divorce of Heaven and Hell

**Vignette #3. The Divorce of Heaven and Hell**

Mick/Beth

She's standing in my kitchen reaching out across the counter for the jar of mayonnaise and it is the sexiest fucking thing I've seen in thirty years. If I close my eyes I can freeze-frame her: one white arm stretched taut; her breasts pushing against the fabric of her shirt; hips thrust back; legs stretched out; feet curling up as she leans forward; that beautiful, rounded a- I've spent so long being celibate, I've started to censor my thoughts as well.

She's holding a spoonful of mayo out at me - _what?_ - it looks like cum. Thick and white. All I can think about is watching it slide past her lips, down her throat, deep inside her. Oh Christ, stop. Breathe. Yes, that's better; thank God the fridge is half-empty. If I half-lean in it looks like I'm debating between chicken strips and um, whatever that brown, muck-covered slab is - meatloaf? Right. And the cold air can do it's thing on the lower half of me which is inordinately pain_ful - GOD_, yes, I'm fine. Don't touch me. So much for cooling down. Wait, when the hell did I grab the meatloaf? Damn it, she's gone for the chicken strips. I'd love to strip her down to nothing and have a naked picnic off her stomach - Mother of God, I'm going to hell. Put some goddamned sperm on the bread and shut up. But I don't like lettuce, Beth, why do I have to eat it? Why do women always end up acting like your mother? If I ever thought of my mother this way...I'm going to hell. I want the chicken strips, damn it. I want her. No matter how intimate we were, I couldn't let myself be drawn by this before.

How could I sully her with this need? I don't know what's changed. It's not just that I'm human again, it's as if we're not afraid anymore. I can viably go to hell now - you have no idea how fucking liberating that is. She's looking at me concerned because I've stopped eating. How do I explain what it's like to have your life back? What do I say? I'm sitting at a table with you, outside on the balcony of my apartment, the sunlight is hitting the plate and reflecting into my right eye; I don't care, I won't go inside because then I'll miss the way it sparkles off your hair, and the way you scrunch your nose slightly and narrow your eyes to block it out. Jesus Christ, I'm crying.

Now is not a good time to touch me, Beth. I've never been so afraid before - of the light, the implications, of a woman. Darkness is where I belong right now - darkness is where I've belonged for more years than I spent mortal. I don't even know how to _be_ human. I'm still crying. And that's another thing - human bodies are so graceless, there's all this extra muck inside them. I have to blow my nose - disgusting. Disgusting, I repeat softly, out loud and of course Beth echoes me teasingly. She's been standing in a corner watching me pace. Didn't even notice she was there. Shouldn't this be the other way round? I'm supposed to be comforting her - that's why we're doing this. She's the one grieving for something she's lost. Only I - I'm grieving in advance for something I will never have again. How can I bear to let this go a second time? I'll go mad, feral; angry, jealous that they can do all the things I want to. Stop _touching me_ - I've got her hand clasped in mine now. I can feel that even without the vampire strength my fingers are crushing hers, but I don't care. I lose control one way or another, now or later.

I'm hurting her, she says in a small voice. I tell her to stop touching me. She touched me when I was a vampire too and I felt more of her then - the blood under her skin, the hormones pulsing, the slow burn of oxygen in her arteries. But this is _equal_. When she touches me, she feels me and I feel her and we are finally, finally, on par together. I have to apologise because I can't explain this, she won't understand. Like so many things I can't explain. She may never understand. Perhaps that's just it. This was supposed to be about me understanding, instead I'm standing here watching her nurse her fingers - she's rubbing them and even without the vampire faculties I can see she's trying not to cry. Add that to the long fucking list of grief I've caused her over the past two months. Add that on, St John. Keep the score because God knows when you revert you're going to need something to hold on to to keep your sanity, something to remind you that being human was not unadulterated pleasure. I should go to her; I watch that body walk towards my door and I am frozen. If I were vamp I could afford to be, at the last second a burst of speed could have me at her side, stopping her. Is it sick that I'm staring at her ass again as she's leaving me?

People often say they would give anything to go back in time, to get a second chance. My mother used to say she'd give anything for just one more day with me. But you can't. Twenty-four hours, a year, a lifetime, is not enough when you want something this badly. I'm not sure I've ever been this hungry.


	4. What are little boys made of?

**Mick/The Band**

He's slippery as a minnow: Mick St John, the untouchable, the uncatchable. Ron and Dibs have bets going on how long it will take before he ends up at the hospital with bleeding sores and VD ravaging his system. The bastard, though, seems to have the luck of the Irish, same as in the War. Not a blemish on those features, always a smile, always a lark. Not a quiver in his voice as he coaxes another girl out of her pretty dress. At least he shares; you can count on Mick to position the little things to best advantage. Lately he's sworn off virgins. After the last three left bloodstains in the back seat he got antsy. "Time to move up in the world, boys," he crowed, picking out an easy G. Moving up means more gigs, pretentious ones where we stand like forgotten statues and make somnolent music. Dibs is easily the most frustrated but the gigs put food on the table and pot in his pockets.

"We look like fairies," Ron says disgustedly. "Fuckin flowers on my shirt."

Jim tosses him the snare drum to shut him up. Ron'll go on for an hour now about how they always disrespected him and his instruments.

Mick just grins. All-American fucker. "Come on," he says, pulling the pot out of his back pocket. "Ten o'clock and we'll be done." The eyebrows quirk. "Gladys is bringing friends."

Try midnight and Mick is gone. Gladys is eclipsed by Coraline and Mick is eclipsed by shadows.


	5. Making Friends

AN: No, I don't believe this ever happened. But in my take on the world, something close to it probably did, with these sentiments if not these actions.

--

**Mick/Coraline/Josef**

"I wanted to show you life, all of it!" she said, slipping the collar a little tighter round his throat. "Hmm? You were so smug - like an insect that thinks a day is a lifetime."

"This is not life," Mick gasped as the silver bit in gently.

"No?"

The line of blood across his chest deepened.

Coraline giggled. "You're aroused," she whispered delightedly. "You're being aroused by the smell of your own blood."

It was the humiliation that caused the almost shriek as he orgasmed. The next night she used the collar on a willing freshie and they fucked him together.

She was right and he hated them both for it. The world burned in clouds of dark colour and tempestuous desire. He was so weak for her and he didn't even know why.

"You're still young," Josef said patronisingly. "You'll grow out of it. Enjoy it while you can."

"Enjoy it?" Mick spat, his face burning.

The older vampire nodded, radiating waves of amusement. "You certainly looked like you were enjoying it."

There was a brief, choked silence. Then, "You saw?"

"It happens with every new Turn." Josef was intrigue to see rage on the vampire's face; this one didn't seem overwhelmed with the new sensations. "We all want to see how Baby likes to play in his new life."

Mick was surprisingly fast and Josef's nose was surprisingly broken. But that was the first and only time Mick landed a punch in the flurry that followed. Coraline was not happy about the damage. Mick counted it as punishment well-taken in advance when Josef forbade any more playing at his house. Truth be told, Josef was quite impressed.


	6. Recovering

**Mick/Parents**

It's a little known fact but Mick St John was not always inordinately neat. He was brought up with his mother ironing the laundry and packing his lunches. The most he did was take the obligatory shower every day. For a while, after the War, he discounted that ridiculous social demand for hygiene. He lay in bed festering and ate a lot of chicken soup; it was easy to digest and meant he only had to get up twice a day. He hurt all over - the doc kept talking about shell-shock but Mick just laughed - from phantom wounds. Sometimes he'd try and talk about the real wounds, tracing the perfect map of Belgium on his thigh.

"See, that line is the Maastricht. North-west, this star-shaped pucker was Antwerp."  
"What's that?"  
"That patch of shiny skin is the hell-hole of the Western Front - so cold it burns."

They didn't see it; nobody knew the outline of the Western Front.

"Maybe if you closed an eye and squinted, eh?"  
"It doesn't have to look like fucking Belgium. It's from there and that's what counts, doesn't it?" Mick snarled.

He thought about big Belgian women and what you could get a girl to do for a smoke or two. They always smelled of dirty earth and sweat; the acrid cigarette tang made a pleasant change. Then he'd feel a bit better and laugh. He didn't see the point of washing away all these nice, bourgeoisie layers of dust he was collecting on his skin: crusts of domestic bacteria, the smell of sleep, lassitude of unwashed hair. His dad offered to shave him and Mick nearly bust a gut laughing. Didn't they know what he'd looked like when he hadn't slept, eaten or pissed in twenty-four hours? When he and his buddies sat in the trenches pulling half-dead soldiers from tangles of corpses to take them back to a camp that would ship them off to a convalescent home somewhere - the ones that lived at least, and did you know that the US military lost 19,000 to the Battle of the Bulge? The Germans lost a full thousand more. Was that what tipped the balance? - while they had to stay. He was like the ferryman, ushering people to death's door: Don't forget to pay the doctor on the way out, love! He'd have killed for a bucket full of hot water to take the smell away. Now he had a bathtub, but what was he going to wash away? The past? History? His miniscule contribution? Breakfast? Nothing.

It was almost a month before he got out of bed voluntarily. Someone had found his guitar in the attic. Mick regarded it suspiciously; Dad must have put it by the door while he was sleeping.

_Huh, fingers cramping - out of practice._

He missed the sudden whoops from the kitchen as he began to pluck out a well-remembered tune.

_When the lights go on again, all over the world  
And the boys are home again, all over the world  
And rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above  
A kiss won't mean 'Goodbye' but 'Hello to love.'_


	7. Josef's Sonnet

**Josef/Mick**

_October 17, 1973_

"I wrote a poem," Josef announced as Mick walked through the front door with a handful of envelopes.

"I'm going to start coating my spare keys with silver," Mick replied by way of greeting. "Was watching the bottom fall out of the market not exciting enough today?"

"Don't worry, they can't survive without selling us oil." Josef eyed the younger vampire carefully. "How much exactly did you invest?"

"Based on your recommendation? Enough. Remind me never to listen to you again when the group in question is a megalomaniacal one with more resources then sense. Sound like a familiar description?" Mick shot the lounging vampire a dirty glance before curiosity got the better of him. "A poem? You?"

"And with that warm welcome...," Josef rose.

Mick snorted. "You want a drink or did I offend your Muse?"

"Yes, a drink; no, your semi-literate derision had no effect, and yes, a poem."

"Josef, call me when you finally make it through a book, OK?"

"Mick, the ABC picture book doesn't count as reading, you know."

They both resisted an uncanny temptation to stick their tongues out at the other.

Sometimes Vampire preternatural capabilities are just so damn cool, Mick thought as he flashed through the kitchen with the full glasses. More and more often these days he caught himself playing out a superhero fantasy, and then the mocking voice in the back of his head, which sounded suspiciously like Josef, would taunt him for hours. Red cape? it would whisper. Nice, blue tights.

Mick blushed. Josef raised his eyebrows, questioning the very unusual waste of resources. Still, Josef noted sympathetically, it's a good demonstration that blood can even get beyond his neck.

"What?" Mick snapped, folding his arms in a huff.

"What are you blushing for or what is my poem about? Or are you blushing because I wrote a poem?"

Mick bypassed the usual snorting and quirking-one-eyebrow reactions, and launched straight into the heavy sighing. "Are you gonna tell me what this is about or are you gonna drop on one knee and start serenading me next?"

"No. No, Mick." Josef tapped a finger against his lips thoughtfully. "You're much better at the strong and silent persona."

"It's OK," he continued, holding up a hand to stem the imminent protest, "we can work on your humour."

"What's the damn poem about, Josef?"

"It's a sonnet actually."

"A sonnet?" So much for bypassing, Mick could feel his eyebrows brushing his hairline. "Since when do you write sonnets?"

"Everyone needs a hobby."

Mick steeled himself to ignore the way the blood sloshed in the glass when Josef flung his arms around. They both seemed to be in that crazy mood which strikes occasionally; it usually led to one or the other eating something disgusting on a dare.

"Yours is self-loathing," Josef was saying animatedly. "I like to experiment. Took up clay moulding once. The freshies loved it. There was something about dirty hands and clay..."

"So you made cups and bowls...for fun?"

"Clay pigeons and anatomically correct sculptures mainly." He grinned wickedly.

"And now you write sonnets for fun?" Mick asked dubiously.

Josef leaned forward abruptly. "Think about it, Mick. I've lived three and a half _centuries_ longer than Shakespeare and _mine_ isn't a household name."

"That's because you keep changing it." Mick paused to savour the moment. "So, a sonnet for me?"

"It was either that or learn to write a madrigal," Josef replied, his eyes dreamy and unfocused. "I've written free verse, blank verse, villenelles, limericks, haiku, quatrains...."

Mick looked at him pityingly. "Josef - the sonnet?"

"Oh. Yeah. About you, not for you."

"This wouldn't compare me to a summer's day by any chance?"

"It's about you and Coraline," Josef smirked and launched into his declamation:

My best friends' armchair -red and candy white-  
Cascades two floors into the street below.  
A momentary chance for armchair flight  
Becomes a gravitational detour.

Mick groaned. Typical goddamn Josef pedantry.

It's typical their screams should pierce the peace  
Across the blinds the shadows seem to sprawl  
A moan cuts short, it's clear there's no appease  
The 'Lizabethan lamp is next to fall.  
[And Day is breaking over dawn and _still_  
The loud furor goes on.] Time slows until  
The porcelain shards fly through the morning haze.  
It misses all the men amassed but sprays  
The cat with broken glass. The frightened crowd  
Decamps - it's too damned dangerous and **loud**!

Josef finished with a deep, bass note on the last word.

The thunderous silence stretched into quiet contemplation, each drinking at intervals, and Josef occasionally shooting glances at Mick.

Finally Mick sighed. "Yeah," he said, "that's us all right."


	8. The Balance of Power

**Mick/Josef**

"Well, playing saviour for Beth seems to be a full-time job now. You'd better make sure she's at least grateful and that discretion is part of that gratitude." Josef's voice sharpened to an icy sneer.

"She's got no reason to talk, Josef. Vampires aren't involved in this one."

"What concerns me is that she wanted us to be. If she can't see past -"

"She hasn't cracked yet and I doubt she will. You already know this or we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'd be answering your very polite summons and you'd be ushering me into your office with her head under your arm."

Josef had done that once, when Mick was very young and very stupid, as a warning. It had been a good warning, given that Mick still remembered it fifty years later. It had also been the first time he had been ushered into Josef's presence without Coraline.

"Touché." Josef waved a languid hand. "I'm glad you remember that bit of advice; it still stands."

Mick almost felt hackles rising. "No, it doesn't. Send anyone to shadow her and I'll send them back to you in pieces. This one I'll take care of."


	9. Two Tangled Thoughts

**Mick**

You never lose your taste for the sun. Light and dark, good and evil - it's a cliché from the depths of civilisation; light separates the human from the monsters. You ask me where the magnitude of my self-loathing comes from? How can it be otherwise, when the very stars reject what I am? Talk about denial - everyday I deny myself for you, from what I could take if I was willing to stretch out a hand and pull you off the tree of life; hold you close to my heart and let you rot and die, isolated in my cupped hands, through the years. And if you wanted, if you seduced me again, we could arrange to poison you, pump you full of inhuman needs and succour you with blood. I'd watch the fresh bloom on your cheeks turn waxy and irrelevant, like plastic flowers or stiff fruit in a bowl.

There are times when I think the madness will finally seep through from where I'm holding it at bay. The vamps understand. It's why Josef has an unending stream of people around him - to distract him and protect him. Me, apparently I like living on the edge. I have my solitude and a long time to remember what keeps me going. But there are nights when I know that if the sun were to rise in the next two minutes, I would go out, shedding every trapping along the way, and finally let it burn the fifty-five stolen years from me. In my mind I can smell the morning. It teases me, rising softly - like a woman draws slowly to arousal - and then shoots out little, beckoning fingers of light. Then I dream, or I pretend to dream, of letting the morning breezes carry the ash over all of Los Angeles, so that millions of people will see me reflected in the smog. And I know a part of me will find its way to Beth and stumble in quietly through her mouth and nose and pores, and I will never need another resting place. A living mausoleum, one that I've wanted to enter so badly; her skin, flesh and blood enshrouding me, with no danger, no ruthless suppression of how I feel or what I want to do to that soft body. No, I could just sit quietly inside her, admiring the fretwork of muscles, whooshing around in her blood, whispering, 'I love you' till I fall out and cease.


	10. The Knave of Hearts

**Mick/Coraline**

"Don't do this, Mick," she pleaded.

There it was again, that piteous tone that grated across his nerves. Mother, he had taunted her. Isn't that what she was now? The madness had put out his eyes once; now he was just tired of being a child.

"Ma coeur."

One white hand reached up to stroke his face; he shivered at the chill on her fingertips.

"I love you. Don't break my heart."

"What heart?" he shot back mockingly. Anger lent credence to his cruelty. "Monsters," and Mick paused to watch her eyes flash briefly. "Monsters don't have hearts. Or souls."

She had stopped breathing at his first words, frozen dumb.

When he opened the door to leave, all she managed was, "You're a fool, Mick St John."

Well, he was. He'd gone back two days later and they'd made up, but there was a revolving door built into the marriage after that. They both left whenever it got too intense, which was often, to a chorus of regrets.


	11. Simple Pleasures

**Mick**

Mick felt an uncomfortable affinity with the lecherous old men on the buses. In turn, they recognized themselves bewilderingly in this young man who moved as if the mob had taken a lead pipe to him behind the coal sheds. The same quick gawp at a nubile form, the sharp intake of breath when the bus braked a little too heavily and the goddess standing above you swayed in the opposite direction to her pendulous breasts. The difference, the hunched-up octogenarians thought angrily, is that all the women he stares at are eying the bastard back.

Mick swore he would never take the bus again - it had been a stupid social experiment. He hadn't taken the bus even when in his teens. But the temptation to travel around LA while basking in the hot sun had struck early this morning, and public transport had seemed like an exciting idea. It was, if you had at least two hours to kill and didn't mind spending them cramped in a slow-moving, metal centipede with fifty other people.

Clouds of exhaust drifted past his window. At one point he groaned softly as a battered Honda overtook them steadily. But if he curled to the left, against the window, and looked up, he could pretend he was on a merry-go-round under the blue winter sky; three clouds, four skyscrapers and a blinding patch of light that he tried to stare at as long as he could. If, when he was staring at the sun, it was blocked out by a skyscraper or billboard, he counted a point for himself. If he finally had to blink or his eyes started to water with the strain, it was a point for Apollo. So far Apollo was 8 in the hole; LA had a lot of skyscrapers and OK, so maybe he cheated just slightly with the blinking. Human error - Mick thrilled at the thought - human error not to notice when you blink.

He contemplated falling asleep against the scratched plexi-glass. Lord knows what secretions had rubbed against it over the years - he should wash his hair when he got home. But right now, the sun was so bright and he was so warm. The leather jacket he had brought unthinkingly half-slipped from his lap to the floor.

The woman standing in the aisle watching him leaned over and tapped two long, salon-treated fingernails against his shoulder. "Watch the jacket, honey."

"Thanks," Mick mumbled sleepily, giving her a quick smile.

"You going far?" She inched forward a little and grabbed on to the leather hand-strap above his seat.

"Union Station."

He was perversely glad she got off at the next stop.

How many people took the bus to Rodeo Drive? A huge luxury tour bus raced past, sun-blistered faces pressed up tight against the tinted windows. He imagined them all staring at him as he stared back - no screaming, "Diabolo," no reek of fear or blood - just green envy towards a native Angelino on their faces and in his mind the insulting epithet: tourists!

This wasn't the LA he knew or remembered. How much had he missed in the last fifty years by skulking through shadows and waiting for darkness?

When the bus lurched to a stop, Mick knew he was in for a world of pain. The battered muscles in his right leg protested as he hoisted himself up gingerly. Two weeks and everything was now achingly stiff. At least the bruises and cuts on his face had faded for the most part - he looked like he'd recently been paroled rather than manhandled in an alley.

The restaurant had been closed, he realized with a shock. And he hugged his enormous Starbucks cup a little tighter. Mick spent a good hour watching people walking through Union Station - kids in big, oversized hoodies, moms with prams, the thousands of beautiful people that worked and withered in LA waiting for the big break, businessmen occasionally, crowds of tourists getting in everyone's way taking pictures. A huge gang of Japanese tourists shuffled past, Nikons snapping by the dozens, the tour leader warbling away in a language that he couldn't catch a word of. Coffee had certainly come a long way in fifty years, he thought contentedly, picking up his cappuccino. Mick realized with a start that he could now drown out background noise, that all his impaired human senses could catch was the layering of loud noises; all the voices, wheels rolling, cameras clicking, heels clicking, trains shunting in the distance produced a wonderful cacophony of human sounds. No heartbeats, no blood pumping, Mick couldn't even hear the clicking noise that the man sitting a foot away had to have been making as his thumb bobbed frantically against the tail of the pen.

His head whipped around unconsciously, the huge smile on his face inviting people to share the pleasure, and he caught himself grinning like a simpleton. It was so hard not to stand up and dance a jig from sheer joy. No, he amended hastily as his body protested, no, it was easy. The flesh was certainly weak. What a marvellous thought!

The most difficult decision of the day, St John, he thought, raking his eyes across the ceiling with the huge Art Deco lights. Left-over duck or some steak? The entire building echoed with his choices. Tick tock, swish swish, thud thud, duck, steak, home, out, hello, bye, duck?, run!, steak, hush...

The twinge in his ribs provided an eminently satisfactory answer. He eased himself upright and then went to hail a cab to take him home.


	12. On Courtly Love

AN: I'm a lit geek and I just wanted to make a silly joke. No offence is intended! Some of you may find it as funny as I did [I can but hope!] and some of you may just smile in passing. Either ways - I hope you at least get a kick out of it.

--

**Josef/Coraline/Mick**

"You know what your problem is?" Coraline asked one evening.

Josef groaned. "Problem? Singular? His brain's fried from all the sex."

"Shut up, Konstantin." Mick waved at him dismissively, watching Coraline's eyes dart in amusement. "What's my problem?"

She glided to perch on the arm of the couch. "You're like Don Quixote riding at windmills." She leaned forward with her head to one side, bird-like.

"Windmills?" he echoed, stupefied.

Josef snorted in amusement as Mick's eyes stayed fixed on the neckline of her robe. "Uh oh, I think the fledgling's off again."

Coraline smiled indulgently and Mick recovered with a scowl.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Cervantes? Don Quixote?"

Mick shook his head at the odd enunciation of words. She sounded like a Mexican day labourer. "I don't like Mexicans," he asserted with lordly authority.

Josef laughed so hard he fell off the chair.

He'd called Mick 'Dunce-inea'* every so often ever since.

--

*Note, Dulcinea is the woman for whom Don Quixote performs his 'chivalrous' deeds.


	13. Union

**Mick/Beth**

"You're so wet," Mick groaned as she raised her hips lightly. "I can feel you coating me."

He opened his eyes to watch her bite back a moan, her body trembling as she moved. Her pulse called to him like a tribal beat - _take me, take me, take me..._

All he could feel was wetness and softness and yielding, and yet Beth rode him and he was helpless.

Mick settled for sucking at the hollow of her throat.

"You're seeping into my skin," he whispered, and she ground back enthusiastically, "Yes!"


	14. Beth

**Mick**

Just her name was a tangible caress. She rolled out of his mouth and he delighted in the soft, whispered consonants as though she was a sudden thought made flesh, a new-born Beth every time.

Beth - the annoying, teasing itch that made him screw up his nose, wondering if he would ever get her out, or if she would sit there, tickling, and driving him mad forever.

It was that look on her face when she said, 'You are not a monster'. He'd heard that over the years, in forgettable tones and tempos, like raven's wings beating against a storm. When Beth said it, it stuck despite his own objections. He didn't want to stop regretting who he had been for fear those terrible things he'd done would vanish into the closets of the past, with nothing to show as recompense.

When he looked at her Mick saw all the remnants of time and life playing around her in a maelstrom. He drowned in the initial sensations, but the closer he fought, the calmer it became; she was the eye of the storm and he wanted the very heart of her. And when he said her name, it all coalesced to four letters. He knew her, he could name her - he owned her name, that power. She hid no secrets, he could single her from a group with his eyes closed. Perhaps that should have given him protection against her; a Rumplestiltskin magic of sorts. But knowing her made her irresistable. He saw the little things nobody else did. That made her his, even if the only thing he touched was her name.


	15. Husband, mine

**Coraline**

He looks down at himself and then back at me - that quick flick upwards of his eyes while his head is still bent, that drives me crazy. I want to beg, say I'll do anything, anything, but I have no idea what I want in return. It's indescribable what he can do to me. I want to be possessed completely, so thoroughly, that wherever we are, whenever he moves - when he flicks his eyes at me, when that left eyebrow curls - I will feel him sliding into me and he will feel me drinking my way into his very soul.


	16. Ananke

AN: This is set at the end of ep. 13 [Fated to Pretend] where Mick is left perched on top of the building, like a big gargoyle.

--

**Mick**

It's been a long time since I was this sure of anything. I don't have the best track record with love, but you already know that. It is easier not to think about what losing Beth could do to me if this failed, if I was wrong. The implications of having a human that close are terrifying - to me, at least. Despite what Josef says, he and I both know it's not about the sex. It's about the fact that I fight to keep my fangs hidden when I kiss her, that her blood is more intoxicating than her eyes. I trust her, I'm in love with her. And she cares for me. It's not enough. I don't want to start this if it's not going to be enough. You think they're both right, don't you? That I'm running scared? It's not fear, it's prudence. OK, maybe a little bit of fear. But she fills me up; I can smell her on the wind in LA, little puffing breaths in and out, as though she's sending me signals through the entire sprawling mass. You'd think the moon and her lips on mine would be enough. When I feel her, she moves into the most vacant part of me, and then the most frightening thing happens - I feel her life reverberating through me, and my own speechless heart starts to beat in echo.

The skyline has no answers, that's not why I'm standing here. I just needed to be away from the food and the moment and the promise. How the hell do I figure this out? Vampires don't date humans. Vampires drain humans. Vampires don't protect humans. Vampires don't cherish humans...but then humans don't cherish vampirism, do they? And I do. I'd do the same thing every day of the next sixty years to keep her whole, breathing and happy. She knows that. Now that's terrifying. She knows what I did, why I did it. She knows that there are no regrets - well, Beth knows the hidden regrets too. I can't help those when I look at her. I'm burning now...I should know better than to call up the memories so quickly. They say some things are so powerful that when you smell them you can almost taste them. Blood is like that, you can taste the iron in the air. I can taste the memories when I inhale. All Beth would have tasted was the wine I forced down. She tasted of so much: seasoning, warmth, skin, tongue. But most of all, for tonight, she tasted of strawberries and that's the closest I'm going to get. Tomorrow I won't remember what they taste like. No regrets. She tasted alive, she was breathing and moving and kissing me back.

If, _if_, we try this, I have no idea what to do on a date anymore. Vampires don't really date, not like humans do. And we usually stun our prey as foreplay. With my Beth, I'm going to have to knock her out - figuratively, of course! Sexy vampire jumping thing, huh? She sounds jealous. I may have to show her what it feels like. I may have to show her what a lot of things feel like when you're with a vampire...

She's done running, I think I'm done fighting. You think forever is too large to gamble on finding another chance like this? You may be right. I've been luckier than most, three second chances and counting: Beth for Coraline, human for vampire, willing vampirism for my stolen mortality. It took me over thirty years to give Coraline up and another twenty-two to let her go. If fifty-two years is all it took to get my ex-wife out of my system, there's hope for me yet. I'm not letting Beth go before it's even started. I've got a lot of time, but my Beth doesn't. And there's no reason not to make every second count, even when you have more of them than most. It's going to be OK. I may even be enough for her, I may be. And hey, this way, I figure I have the right to get in a lot of practice kissing her, till she's ready.


	17. From one vamp to another

AN: I'm going to forestall the possible rant by Eris about how AO- is not a blood group. I know, Eris. But I'm just going to play along with canon here.

--

**Mick/Guillermo**

Guillermo grinned at him knowingly. "Why Beth?"

He was rewarded with a shrug. "She got to me."

"Ain't no reason she should have. You had lots of girls. Come on, Mick. It's not like the ladies don't see you. Being friends with Josef helps some, eh? And the 80s parties with the late-night feedings?"

"Man." Mick turned his head to cover the embarrassed grin. "Different century, different times. I don't know. She just did, OK?"

"Yeah, I see it." Guillermo slid the body drawer closed with a gentle scrape. "Big blue eyes, all those blonde curls - hey, why'd she straighten her hair anyway? Loved those curls bouncing down my hallway." He gestured rudely, "Curls up above, those legs swaying...you know what I'm saying."

"I think you're saying, 'Mick, hit me please. I have a death wish.'" The eyebrows were raised gently, half in warning, half in fun.

"Come on, Mick. Cut me some slack. It's been what- twenty years for you? And you pick up a hot little human with the rarest blood group on the planet. Life's not fair." Guillermo lobbed used plastic gloves into the bin smoothly. "Shoulda played for the Lakers. You know, I could clean up with my vertical leap and my crazy basketball skills."

"You do that, buddy." Mick waved the folder at him in salute before walking back out to the stark hallway.


	18. Bite

Prompt: Moonlight, Mick/Josef, bite

--

"You know what this is?"

"Yeah. A wrist, Josef."

"No, _this_ is prime AB-. Delicious, aren't you, Felicity?" He rubbed his thumb gently over her pulse point and raised the wrist a little higher before he bit down.

Mick's eyes darted away from the sight of Josef's mouth on her arm, his gaze travelling up the freshie's legs instead, past the hem of her dress, up to where Josef's fist bunched cool satin at her waist. Then higher still to her small breasts and the throbbing pulse-point in her throat; he hardened instantly when she arched her neck and threw the veins into sharp relief. It had been years since he'd watched a woman come undone at a feeding. And it always reminded him of Coraline, of what it was like to taste the passion in vampire blood.

Josef's grip on the girl's arm eased - the fangs had been retracted - and then his lips were moving in a gentle sucking rhythm. Josef fed slowly, mouth and tongue teasing across broken skin, arm tight around her waist. Sweat beaded on her temples, eyelashes fluttering convulsively as she teetered on midnight-blue heels.

The freshie whimpered as Josef eased his mouth away. He smiled at her, then his eyes flicked quizzically to Mick. Perhaps this time...?

They were both startled when he said, "Yeah."

Mick slid his fangs into the still-seeping punctures, widening them slightly, positioning his mouth as Josef had. He knew from touch and smell where they overlapped on the girl's skin, and every mouthful tasted faintly of Josef as well.

He could sense the gallons running under her skin, whooshing through veins and arteries. She was mewling now, rubbing against him , and it would be so easy to let go-- Suddenly it wasn't enough at all, this delicate symbiosis. For a second he almost felt it: skin tearing like fragile parchment as he jerked his fangs across her flesh, chasing rivulets of blood down her arm, swallowing and licking until she put a trembling hand against his chest.

He forced the images from his mind. Eventually he forced himself to stop. Josef didn't say a word.

When he was finally done, she left quickly. Both vampires watched until the door shut behind her.

"Well, that was exciting." Josef smirked. "Scotch?"

Mick turned to him then - staring, white eyes and bloody, aching fangs. "Not yet," he said hoarsely. "Josef...."

It wasn't until Mick took his arm that Josef understood. He nodded slightly as desperate eyes met his and desperate hands clawed at his cufflinks. "Yes," he echoed and the word spun itself out into a sharp hissing when Mick's teeth finally penetrated.

A real bite, hard and messy and on the edge of pain and ecstasy - flesh that didn't crumble under his teeth, bones that were never too brittle to shatter under the onslaught of all that need. Josef met him sensation for sensation, sinking his teeth into Mick's bowed neck. Too long, it had been too long.


End file.
